Margaret Mead

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.

Summary

Margaret Mead (1901 - 1978) was the first major anthropologist to study the fine details of child-rearing practices and learning theory within social groups. Based on her observations, she proposed that children learned through "imprinting."

Her work through anthropological studies concluded that there is no evidence of the existence of universal human motivations (Instincts) (see Psychological Aspects of Biodanza).

Ideas

• Mead studied several cultures with opposite values of society and personal roles within one hundred miles of one another,
• Her intention was to disprove the then current theory that the masculine and feminine roles were innate and unchangeable.
• She found that the masculine and feminine attributes were determined by the systematic effort from the parents, not the product of the sexually identifiable distinctions.
• There were differences in attitudes and identification of roles that crossed the sexual lines among the people of three different cultures in the Pacific.